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Cover of 58 Minutes

58 Minutes

by Walter Wagerliterary work· published 1987

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58 Minutes is a 1987 thriller novel by American novelist Walter Wager. The novel was the basis for the 1990 film Die Hard 2. Frank Malone is a divorced NYPD captain who is waiting at JFK International Airport in New York City for his young daughter to arrive from California as he is going to spend Christmas with her. Unfortunately, a mysterious man known only as "Number 1" calls the control tower and tells the crew of the airport that he has cut the power to the runway lights of JFK and every airport in the vicinity and has hijacked their equipment, leaving them with only 58 minutes to meet their demands until the first plane, which carries Frank's daughter, runs out of fuel and crashes. With a massive blizzard coming in, the planes have nowhere else to go.

Adaptations (1)

58 Minutes was adapted into a 1990 film.

  • Poster for Die Hard 2
    Die Hard 2
    1990 · film · 124 min · dir. Renny Harlin · IMDb ↗

    One year after his heroics in Los Angeles, John McClane is an off-duty cop who is the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. On a snowy Christmas Eve, as he waits for his wife's plane to land at Washington Dulles International Airport, terrorists take over the air traffic control system in a plot to free a South American army general and drug smuggler being flown into the US to face drug charges. It's now up to McClane to take on the terrorists, while coping with an inept airport police chief, an uncooperative anti-terrorist squad, and the life of his wife and everyone else trapped in planes circling overhead.

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